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Comment by huijzer | Hacker News Reader

Data centers used 460 TWh, or about 2% of total worldwide electricity use, according to IEA in 2022.

In comparison, 30% of total energy (energy! Not electricity) goes to transport!

As another point of comparison, transport in Sweden in 2022 used 137 TWh [1]. So the same order of magnitude as total datacenter energy use.

And datacenters are powered by electricity which increases the chance that it comes from renewable energy. Conversely, the chance that diesel comes from a renewable source is zero.

So can we please stop talking about data center energy use? It’s a narrative that the media is currently pushing but as so many things it makes no sense. It’s not the thing we should be focusing on if we want to decrease fossil fuel use.

[1]: https://www.energimyndigheten.se/en/energysystem/energy-cons...

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2% of total worldwide electricity use in 2022 is a shit load of electricity and emissions. Your argument is the same as those who argue "our country shouldn't care about emissions when China is the biggest emitter".

If you dive into a detailed breakdown of emissions you'll find that it's a complex hierarchy of categories. You can't just fix "all of transport" or treat it like a "low hanging fruit", just look at how much time it's taken for EV penetration to be in any way significant; look at how much of transport emissions are from aviation or shipping or other components.

Any energy use that's measurable in whole percentage points of global emissions needs addressing. That includes data centers.

> our country shouldn't care about emissions when China is the biggest emitter

To be fair, until China does something about their emissions, the rest of us are just pissing in the ocean.

Don't shit in your own back yard, no matter what other people like to do.

Eh, per capita China has lower emissions than the US whilst manufacturing and exporting significantly more.

Everything is intertwined and tightly coupled, such simple statements are rarely accurate.

US need to sort their shit out as well.

China is actively working on reducing their emissions (they're building tons of nuclear and renewables, and have long term plans for both), and a lot of theirs are to manufacture stuff the whole world uses.

> manufacture stuff the whole world uses

I would argue that the world wouldnt use as much stuff if China stopped manufacturing it

> Your argument is the same as those who argue "our country shouldn't care about emissions when China is the biggest emitter".

China and the US are in the same order of magnitude in emissions. So NO that's absolutely not the argument I am making.

> Any energy use that's measurable in whole percentage points of global emissions needs addressing

But it isn't! That's my point. Electricity use is about 20% of total energy use. So if we talk about global emissions, data center is only about 20% * 2% = 0.4% of total energy use.

And then if we talk about total emittance, it's even lower because 40% of electricity is generated from nuclear and renewables.

> just look at how much time it's taken for EV penetration to be in any way significant

Yes so let's focus on that instead of data centers. Data centers are not the problem!

EDIT: Also CPUs and GPUs are still becoming more energy efficient. So I'm a bit skeptical of extrapolations which say that data centers will consume a large percentage of US energy. If the number of CPUs and GPUs doubles each 2 years, but energy efficiency doubles too, then overall energy usage doesn't grow so fast. Especially if old CPUs and GPUs are taken out of the system over time because they become too expensive to operate.

> Yes so let's focus on that instead of data centers. Data centers are not the problem!

This is like saying I shouldn’t care about pollution from the local auto painting shop because there are strip mines somewhere else. Yes, it’s not the top priority but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be trying to reduce pollution just as we are for every large producer, and with both LLMs and cryptocurrency having potential demand outstripping the existing supply we have every reason to expect continued growth in emissions at a time when we need decline.

Rather than taking this so personally, consider that people on HN talk about it because our choices actually matter here. Very few of us affect heavy industrial policy but all of us can think about how much our applications need to run.

Thanks for sharing. I care about it. I run a small hosting company. Sure, there are many low hanging fruits for fighting CO2 emissions that should be tackled first. I am also hopeful that energy from directly available renewables will be the most economic choice for building data centers anyhow, so that this is not a matter of believes any more.

But on the other side, to bring down CO2 levels, fast change everywhere is required. As far as I see data center energy consumption continues to grow, specifically with AI.

If I am not mistaken, data centers produce more CO2 than aviation.

And sure, most 'green hosting' is probably 'green washing', yet I would still support and link initiatives such as: https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/

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